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If you had a utility to migrate information to and from Geni to your local genealogy program, what would you want? Here's your chance to be heard!

Private User

5/19/2011 at 2:11 AM

I would like three options when dealing with conflicting data. Keep, Delete and Store, where you have two conflicting pieces of information and you can choose to keep one and then the other one can either be deleted or stored in a note or something like that.

The note could say something like "When syncing data with Geni.com on 1/1/2012 the birth date of William Johnson of 12/5/1904 with a citation of 'Phone call with Aunt Mable on 5/5/1985' was replaced with 5/12/1905 from Geni.com which originated in the tree of John Smith who cited it as 'William Johnson Birth Certificate 5/12/1905'"

Private User

6/7/2011 at 10:26 AM

Private User - So you want to be able to note what was changed and how it was changed. That's really a great idea. We can do that.

A lot of people have more than one database, for example:
- ancestors only
- bloodrelatives only
- family from father's side
- family from mother's side

In each sync profile one should be able to specify what to sync, and what not to sync.
In addition to that it might be practical to be able to specify to only sync to a certain degree, starting form a certain person.

Private User

6/17/2011 at 7:57 AM

1) I would like to be able to sync images for a person and select the picture for their profile.

2) I would like to see an undo option for sync. I've seen duplicate records showing up in my family tree that has been questionable and difficult to undo since their is not a command line interface to fix the issues.

3) I would like to own my records in geni that were syncronized. I noticed once I invited someone to my family tree I was unable to make changes to thier records. This has become a problem since most of them have not been active in the past year. Also I've seen family records that I've added in my extended family I've lost permissions to edit and in control of someone else. If I could use my own records I upload I should have full control of my records added.

Private User

6/17/2011 at 12:41 PM

Dimitri:
I just found out that the technology is there to do just that. We'll have to work on the UI, but this is entirely possible. When we get to that point perhaps we can pass some UI screenshots over to you and get your input?

Nicholas:
Great suggestions. The profile picture we can set as the current profile picture, but you want to be able to select it otherwise? Expand on that if you would.

Undo option, meaning undo some data that someone else added to your tree on Geni that got sync'd down to your desktop? If that's what you mean, that's what we're working on.

Adding control to that which you submit will be a default option for sure. We'll make sure this works.

Dovy....where would you like us to report issues? All here in this discussion, or do you want to have separate discussions for Mac vs PC, and/or for the different desktop programs we might be using?

Nothing to report yet, just want to get things started in the best format for you....

Private User

6/17/2011 at 4:24 PM

Dimitri:
We'll look into that as we get further along.

Anita:
I've created this post: http://www.geni.com/discussions/96420 The great thing is our codebase between Mac/PC is virtual identical. Any issues would be strictly cosmetics (looks, slightly different functionality). We should be able to just keep things together.

If there is any real concern or a special case feel free to email info@ancestorsync.com and we'll do our best to get it resolved quickly.

Thank you all.

Private User

6/18/2011 at 10:42 AM

Expanding on my earlier idea:
For profile control when geni and family tree maker combine give the user a selection menu with a list of combined pictures. Display as small thumbs. Allow selection for each person new default photo. Also there needs to be a control for duplicate pictures.
I have some pictures in both locations and it should be managed during the initial merge.

Here are some ideas that come to mind after a first successful download. Thanks for a most interesting product idea and good luck in further development!

1. Usefulness of the download would increase, if it were possible to select the start person freely and not always start with myself. I would like to start at my children or alternatively at a relative who would like to get a report on her/his own relatives. More generally: it is easier to handle several small files than one big file.

2. When downloading near relatives, it would be logical to get cousins at the same degree of distance, which is selected for ancestors. This would enable reaching the generation of one’s own children even among cousins. I am now missing my second, third and fourth cousins, and first cousins’ spouses remain unconnected to the family.

3. I support the excellent idea presented above by @Philip Trauring - would be great when we reach the stage of syncing to see what has been changed.

4. I also support the excellent idea by @Dimitri Schouten of also downloading and syncing blood relatives - and would add to this the syncing of persons at the same degree of distance mentioned above in point 2.

Private User

6/20/2011 at 11:25 AM

Eero:
1. We have that option already developed, but we have yet to create an interface for it. We're going to start by fixing all the bugs we currently have, then expanding to that. Our hurdle is making that process simplistic.

2. What option did you have selected for the breadth of the download? If you included Grandchildren and Spouses, that issue may be resolved. If you desire greater breadth we will need to look into that further.

3. So you would like a revision history in AncestorSync OR in your Genealogy program via notes, or both? Could you please clarify?

4. You want to be able to download multiple databases in specific manners. Interesting. Can't you currently do that by selecting "ancestors only?" I guess I see the wish, but isn't it possible to do a portion of that now?

Dovy, thanks for your comments/replies. Here are a few complementary remarks to the above points.

2. I did select the broadest alternative and the problem described above occurred.

3. Revision history (i.e. a list of changes) in AncestorSync might be the easier alternative for you, as the notes option is probably more difficult to achieve.

4. Selecting "ancestors only" will leave out the cousins, which are important members of a relatives' network to a certain point, at least to third cousins and their spouses. I think Geni has set privacy limits at fourth cousins, unless the profile owners decide to let each other be known. That network is probably the one many people like to update to their own databases, in addition to ancestor information of earlier generations. I have found interesting contacts with newly found sixth cousins via genealogy, even though our shared ancestors are seven generations up.

Private User

6/20/2011 at 5:06 PM

Eero:
2. If we added the option for you to select a starting person, would that alleviate you concern with cousins, etc? The issue lies that if we are to do that, we have to traverse the Geni API to where those cousins and you connect, which could be a greater distance. Just asking you which would be the best solution for you.

3. We'll do what we can in this area.

4. Understood. We'll look at some solutions to this after the other issues are resolved.

Making the starting person selectable will help a lot, as it would make possible then to combine downloaded trees via some bridge persons in the local database.

I assume that many would like to work rather in connected patches of say 500 to 1,000 individuals here and there than download 100,000 or more as one file, which may already be difficult to handle and may bring in branches not interesting from the researcher's point of view.

Of course uploading back to Geni should also be possible in this case to several root persons. Actually I don't know what Geni's policy is in this case.

Private User

6/29/2011 at 10:58 AM

To be honest, I want the ability to download all of my work. And since I've worked on many different places in the big tree, it means it all have to be downloaded. I know it's quite impossible, but that's still my dream...

Private User

6/29/2011 at 7:20 PM

Anders:
Not impossible to be honest. We are limiting the demo, but we may be able to make this happen, but it would just take time... lots of time.

Depending on your tree, a LONG time. Don't forget, not all of your work is your own. We're talking the Geni tree... It's one world tree. :)

Private User

6/30/2011 at 3:08 AM

Another wish: List of people to be exported.

Eg. I have taken all the pupils in my school class, and added them to the World tree. I planned to export it and print it out to show them how complex genealogy can be. But how could I export just my class, and link between us?

This may be complicated, but simply an export of the relationship between people in a list.

I would like to +1 for selecting any person as a starting point - Eero's suggestion #1. (e.g.: not one currently in my Geni.com tree, for example). Why? Because I know from my local database there are connections, but I don't want to have to hand-load all the connections upward to that existing, known ancestor many generations back. Then, once I've downloaded and filled in the "missing pieces" on my local database, I hope to be able to upload the "missing pieces" to fill in the connections on the Geni.com site.

Private User

7/20/2011 at 2:02 PM

@Anders - Interesting. So you want a report? Is this before or after you download the data? Are you only interested in a report?

@Dan - This is coming! Look for it within the next 2-3 weeks.

Private User

8/8/2011 at 5:07 AM

A kind of, or more the possibility to make a list of people on different places in the tree, and then export a GEDCOM-file with these people, and all the people "between", and the ability to choose how detailed the link should be exported (eg. siblings, partners, parents etc. to the "links")

Does it make sense?

Private User

8/8/2011 at 5:15 AM

I can't find the topic right now, but didn't we discuss a native linux client? That would also be awesome especially with global menu and Unity-integration.